Bachelard (Gaston)
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Minute of silence for a lost opportunity.

        Before the war, France boasted of three big "Bs", Bergson, Brunchsvicg, Blondel. The only I would recommand was the fourth mousquetaire. As much as Benda, Bachelard "sniffed" bergsonism. But he cultivated a complex  in front of the "sorbonique"...
        First a postman, involved in a war, doctor in sciences and  philosophy, Bachelard is a  philosopher near to my "schooling", without reaching the class of Popper or Wittgenstein. He could have built a factory in Center-Africa.
    He will remain, (with French "scientists-philosophers"), one of the exportable French philosophers in this century.


Excerpt of «The Philosophy of No», published 2d quarter 1940.
        This text is remarkable:
- a definition changes, (it was sufficient to search at what times and for what reasons and we had noodigmes, more efficient that Khunian paradigms !) Then, Bachelard could  attack the big problem of philosophy, the " definition of definition
- "The scientific knowledge orders all thinking,  THE SCIENCE ORDERS THE VERY PHILOSOPHY... The scientific thought provides a principle therefore for the classification of philosophies and for the survey of progress of the reason...
Just a comment on the idea, "No philosopher would say that Leibniz is in advance on Descartes, that Kant is in advance on Plato": Kant is the central pillar of my chain of philosophers. To most "continental" philosophers, I   just offer a place in "Chosen Philo-Titbits".

        "We say the scientist to be realist, while we count the cases when he is  realist. He is said to be positivist, while choosing sciences that are  positivist. We say that the mathematician is rationalistic, while choosing his reflections that are still Kantian... Epistemologists say that the physicist is rationalistic, while finding cases where he is already rationalistic... others say that sociologists are positivist while choosing  some examples where they are already positivist...
« One can discuss without end on the moral progress, on the social progress... there is a progress that escapes all discussion however, it is the scientific progress as soon as one judges it in the hierarchy of knowledge... We are going to take the sense of this progress therefore for axis of our philosophical survey, and if, on abscissas of its progress, the philosophical systems stand regularly in a constant order... we will have some right to speak of a philosophical progress of the scientific notions.
« Let's remain one instant on this philosophical notion of progress. It is a notion that has little sense in pure philosophy. No philosopher would say that Leibniz is in advance on Descartes, that Kant is in advance on Plato. But the sense of the philosophical evolution of the scientific notions is so clean that it is necessary to conclude that the scientific knowledge orders the thought, that THE SCIENCE ORDERS THE VERY PHILOSOPHY. The scientific thought provides a principle therefore for the classification of philosophies and for the survey of progress of the reason.
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        It is on the scientific concept of mass that we want to make a demonstration of the philosophical maturation of the scientific thought... As the concept of mass, already absorbed in the complex relationism of the Relativity, has just found, in the mechanics of Dirac, a clean and curious dialectics, it is revealed to our eyes, with a complete philosophical perspective.
« Under its first shape, the notion of mass corresponds to a coarse quantitative appreciation... One appreciates a mass with his eyes. For a greedy child , the thickest fruit is the better... The notion of mass concretizes the same desire to eat.
« An empty cockle contradicts the greed... then one understands that thickest is not necessarily richest. The notion of mass internalizes itself. The various animist dreams give themselves free course... is it  not striking that some psychologists speak  of a clear concept of the mass or the load of activity... This analogy refers to the animist concept of the mass... For Homo Faber, the mass is always a club. The club is a tool of the  Will of Power... In summary, the mass is  a quantity  if it is thick enough.
        « A mind that  accepts a concept of this nature cannot reach the scientific culture... There is a curious symptom on which one will never think too much: it is the speed with which an animist concept is understood... It only needs to some words to teach what is a "charge of  activity"... Everything that is easy to teach is improper...
The second level on which  the notion of mass one can be studied corresponds  to an empiric use ... The concept is bound to the use of the balance. It benefits the instrumental objectivity... the instrument precedes its theory... a conduct of the balance appears, as simple as the conduct of the basket studied by Pierre Janet to characterize one of the first shapes of  human intelligence... To think is to weigh, to weigh is to think. We have the «realist thought». The theoretician can speak more quickly. Also, in the reign of the mind the bad currency chases the good money, the realism hunts the rationalism.
The third aspect appeared when Newton  founded the rational mechanics. It was the time of the notional solidarity. The notion of mass is defined  in a body of notions, the quotient of strength by the acceleration... This report is perfectly analyzed by  arithmtic rational laws.  Question: « Of strength,mass, acceleration, what is real? »
        « Before Newton,  the mass was studied in its being; after Newton, it is studied in its becoming. Very curious remark: the necessity to understand its future rationalized the  realism of being. It is in the sense of philosophical complication that the rationalistic values develop themselves...
        « A special mathematical attaches itself to the experience and rationalizes it... The rational mechanics  of Newton quickly conquers all functions  of  aKantian a  priori: it's a scientific doctrine already provided of a philosophical Kantian character. The metaphysics of Kant instructed themselves on the mechanics of Newton.
«Newtonian rationalism  dominated all the mathematical Physics of the 19th century. Elements that he chose became the basis of measure systems... To put an analytic question to their consideration had no sense. They are the a priori of the metric philosophy.
        «Relativity discovers that the mass... is a function of the speed. The mass of an object is relative to the displacement of this object. The absolute rest, or the absolute mass, have no sense...
        « There is only one means for  science to advance, it is to contradict the organized science... The realist is badly prepared  for it, because it seems that  realism is a philosophy inside which one is always right... It doesn't constitute itself because it always believes itself organized. But there again, success is on the side of the biggest risk...
« None of these extensions is  the result of a realistic survey  of the phenomenon. All have a noumenal side, appear as noumenes in search of their phenomenon. The reason is therefore  an activity with a tendency to complete itself.
        « The mechanics of Dirac is one example of «dialectic surrationalism», that represents the fifth level of our dispersed philosophy . It starts from a «totalitarian conception», the phenomenon of the propagation...
        « The calculation gives us two masses for only one object. One summarizes what we knew in the FOUR PREVIOUS PHILOSOPHIES. But the other mass, dialectic of the first, is a negative mass... a kind of dialectics that one would never  find while digging  Newtonian relativistic notion of the mass... monstrous concept and mark of a fundamental mistake of the 19th century. A philosophy of the 'as if' gives all rights but there are limits!
        « The philosophy of the «WHY»   appears. Why  the mass should not be negative?
        « Our thesis would lose a lot of its strength if we could not lean on other examples...It is the case for the negative energy, that appears precisely in the same way as the concept of negative mass...